Recently, there was a New York Times contest that asked people to submit a brief essay as to why it is ethical to eat meat, in response to the assumption that opting to forgo animal products is sacrifice made with an environmental objective.

I personally eat meat, although I didn’t used to. Reintroducing meat back into my diet was a choice based upon health and nutrition, and also reflected on the fact that I do not believe thoughtful meat consumption to be either unethical or unsustainable, nor that widespread vegetarianism will facilitate a sustainable future for our planet.The argument that humans evolved to eat and thrive on animal products is irrefutable, with anthropological evidence suggesting that our adaptation to meat consumption spurred increased brain growth and activity that we well-evolved creatures reap the benefit of today. The fact is, pastured meat and other animal products are rich in compounds that the human body needs to survive, and no single human population in the course of human evolutionary history has, by choice, adopted a 100% plant-based diet. You can choose to do a vegetarian diet well, but a diet that includes animal foods, natural fats, together with a variety of plant matter is one that is highly compatible to human health.Human prosperity aside, the appropriate consumption of well-raised and soundly managed livestock benefits not only the consumer, but both the environment and food system as well. Much like humans evolved to flourish on a varied, omnivorous diet, our environment thrives when appropriately utilized by animals. Growing vegetables is an inherently extractive process, removing nutrients from the soil, so a sustainable system requires other inputs to replace them. Animals raised outside, grazing on the products of the land on which they walk, give back to the environment by fertilizing the land with their manure, regenerating it for future use and enriching the nutrient value of the soil. The production of vegetables without the use of animals requires much larger amounts of energy with a greater reliance on industrial systems to clear vegetation, rejuvenate soil, spread seed and fertilize crops. If you’re concerned about the issue of cattle water and feed consumption depleting our natural resources, look to this article for clarification.

As for the animals, the reality is that many of them would not exist if we did not eat them. Killing animals is not pleasant, but it’s a time-honoured part of natural order, integral to both human, plant and animal survival. “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise” was the land ethic of environmentalist and scientist Aldo Leopold. A well-managed, free-ranged cow is able to turn the sunlight captured by plants into condensed calories and protein with the aid of the enzymes and microorganisms in its multi-stomached digestive system. Some nutrients would not otherwise be available to us single-stomached species, but by eating the meat of animals.

Thus, animals play an essential role in our food system, yet it is undeniable that much of our production has fallen out of balance. I can’t think of a moral justification for industrial-scaled confinement operations no more than I can produce a nutritional argument for the consumption of such meat (a vastly different product to its pasture-fed counterpart).It seems a social anomaly that we might even have the luxury to argue about the ethics of eating meat, as in the past, and in many communities around the world today, there is no such choice. If we are gifted such a preference, it follows that we also have a responsibility as consumers to place our money in such a way that will cultivate ethical and local farming, rather than factory feedlots.